Friday, April 20, 2018

If you've read my blog for some time you know that I like what is the meaning of life? question. Most people would say the meaning of life is to make the world a beautiful, nicer and more interesting place. They think that is possible through work.

But definition of work is incredibly narrow. GDP counts "work" as an activity that generates money. Our education is set around feeding as many people as possible into money making corporate machine. A growing proportion of employees, even successful ones, say their work is pointless. That’s one of the biggest taboos of our times.

Recent study done in 142 countries with more than 200,000 employees surveyed is showing that only 13% of workers actually like their job. Half said they're feeling that their job have no “meaning and significance", 40% think they have a job that is utterly useless and 50% are unable to relate to their company’s mission. A growing number of people think their job is useless.

Do you think you work an useless, bullshit job? On paper, your job may sound fantastic. You may be a successful professional with impressive LinkedIn profile and large salary, nevertheless you may go home every evening grumbling that your work serves no purpose. I’m not talking about the healthcare workers, the teachers, and the nurses of the world. No, I’m talking about the growing armies of financial consultants, bankers, tax advisors, managers, and others...

It is the big banks and other financial corporation that set the work standards in today's world. Employees of such corporations work under extreme stress to work and produce more. The work is closely monitored by software who measured how much time employees spend in each deal they are making. Yet, working for the big banks have been a dream for so many. They do not realize that such jobs lead them to automation.

The single and the greatest danger of working bullshit job is actually degeneration of your consciousness. It is doing one thing all over again, being carefully monitored and brainwashed by the micromanagement. Thinking about corporate things lowers your IQ, harms your cognitive functions, makes you robot like creature under constant stress of achieving more, producing more... and all that leads to depression and apathy.

I believe in a future where the value of your work is not determined by the size of your paycheck, but by the amount of happiness you spread and the amount of meaning you give. I believe in a future where the point of education is not to prepare you for another useless job, but for a life well lived. I believe in a future where “jobs are for robots and life is for people.” - Rutger Bregman, Correspondent of World Economic Forum, Netherlands

Those words are pure utopia. We are heading in different direction. The buy and sell mentality is squeezing out the last reminders of our consciousness. Mankind, driven by greed, has become extremely sick.

One hundred years ago it was predicted that we’d all be working just 15-hours per week by the year 2030. The prediction was clearly wrong. Since the 1980s, work has started taking up more of our time, bringing burnouts and stress to all of us.